Using Pain And Pleasure

If we want to understand human beings, it is useful to both delve deeply into our own psyche and experience, but also to examine various models of humans throughout history. The one I’ve spent the most time with, and love the most, is the Chakras. If the “Three Centers” of Belly, Heart, and Head are in some ways a simplification of the seven Chakras, they’re still so very useful, but let’s get to the base of it all — 1st Chakra. Survival.

The primary instruction in all the human software is to survive. While it can be overruled (parents running into burning buildings to save children) such overrulings are rare enough to be worthy of comment and praise. A sufficient commitment to things like honor, duty, powerful ambition and so forth can induce the right kind of person to risk or even sacrifice life.

Pain is of course the signal our body-mind sends to warn us of damage. Fear warns us of risk of pain. Anger is one of the ways we mobilize fear for action.

If you look at pain as also discomfort, then you can understand why the capacity to tolerate discomfort is one of the doorways to success in ANYTHING, let alone specifically physical disciplines.

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” — #MuhammadAli

That’s it right there. Some can have difficulty understanding this. If we are wired to avoid pain, and no one ever voluntarily selects pain over pleasure, how to understand discipline and…